Privacy Policy

Privacy Statement

1. Introduction

Fleetwood Family Law provides legal services to the public in British Columbia and is committed to protecting the privacy of information it obtains in the course of carrying out its functions.

2. Principles

Fleetwood Family Law’s management and protection of personal information provided to it by articled students, lawyers, applicants, members of the public, employees and volunteers, including information that is subject to solicitor-client privilege, is guided by the following principles:

1. all personal information in our custody and control will be collected, used and disclosed in accordance with the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA), the Legal Profession Act (theAct), the Law Society’s Rules and other applicable legislation; and
2. Fleetwood Family Law will embody a culture in which personal information is protected and respected.
3. Responsibilities

All employees, volunteers and service providers working on behalf of Fleetwood Family Law are responsible for securing and protecting personal information in the custody and control of the firm.

All managers are responsible for overseeing the collection, use, disclosure, retention and disposal of personal information within their departments to ensure compliance with the firm’s policies.

Fleetwood Family Law management will provide effective leadership on privacy at the firm.

4. What is personal information?

Examples of personal information as set out in Schedule 1 of FIPPA include an individual’s name, home address and phone number, age, financial information, and family status.

The definition of “contact information” includes an individual’s name or title, business telephone number, business address, business e-mail and business fax number.

5. Purposes for collecting, using, disclosing and retaining personal information

Fleetwood Family Law collects, uses, discloses and retains personal information about clients and opposing parties in order to perform its duties and functions to provide legal services in British Columbia in accordance with the Rules of Court. http://www.bclaws.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/169_2009_00

6. Collecting personal information

Fleetwood Family Law is authorized under the Act, the Law Society Rules, FIPPA and other applicable law to collect personal information for certain purposes.

When collecting personal information, Fleetwood Family Law will:

• limit the collection of personal information to what is necessary to undertake our functions or as permitted by applicable law;
• be open and transparent about the information that is being collected by communicating a clear and lawful purpose for the collection;
• ensure that all clients have the right to request access to the personal information we hold about them, and the right to seek correction if that personal information is incorrect; and
• only collect personal information directly from the subject of the information, unless consent is given to collect information from other sources or collection from another source is permitted by applicable law.

7. Collecting personal information over the internet

In some instances, Fleetwood Family Law may collect personal information over the internet. The online forms on the Fleetwood Family Law website use SSL encryption to protect the data stream. Upon its submission to the firm, the personal information is retained in a secure database.

8. Using or disclosing personal information

Fleetwood Family Law will only access, use or disclose personal information for the purposes for which it was collected, or for a use that is consistent with that purpose, unless consent for another access, use or disclosure has been obtained, is permitted by the Act or the Law Society Rules, or is otherwise authorized by law.

Personal information will not be accessed, used or disclosed by Fleetwood Family Law employees or volunteers except as authorized in the course of fulfilling their duties and responsibilities.

9. Retaining and disposing of personal information

Fleetwood Family Law will only retain personal information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes for which the personal information was collected, including for the purpose of meeting any legal, accounting or other reporting requirements or obligations.

10. Safeguarding personal information

Fleetwood Family Law protects personal information in accordance with applicable law.

Fleetwood Family Law has made reasonable security arrangements to secure against the unauthorized access or disclosure of personal information.

All Fleetwood Family Law employees and volunteers are required to comply with the firm’s policies and procedures, in relation to the security, management and protection of all personal information within the firm’s custody and control. Service providers working on behalf of Fleetwood Family Law are required to comply with FIPPA and will be made aware of the firm’s privacy policies.

11. Third parties

Fleetwood Family Law will not sell or rent personal information.

Where Fleetwood Family Law is permitted by FIPPA, the Act, the Law Society Rules or is otherwise authorized by law to disclose personal information to a third party, we will inform the third party that it must not disclose the personal information for any purpose other than the purpose for which the firm gave the personal information to the third party.

12. Service providers

Privacy protections will be in place for all service providers. All contracts entered into by Fleetwood Family Law with service providers that may have access to personal or confidential information will contain specific provisions requiring compliance with FIPPA and applicable law relating to the security and privacy of personal information.

All service providers that may have access to personal information in the firm’s custody or control will be advised and reminded as necessary of the firm’s privacy policies and our obligations to ensure the security and protection of personal information.

Website privacy

1. What information do we collect when you visit the Fleetwood Family Law website?

When you browse our website, the following information is automatically collected and stored:

1. The IP (Internet Protocol) address of your Internet service provider or your computer which also identifies the domain name (such as shaw.ca or yourcompany.com) of your service;
2. The operating system of your computer and the browser you use (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, etc.);
3. The time and date that you visited our site;
4. The Fleetwood Family Law web pages that you used.

We use this information to analyze the use and performance of the website, using Google Analytics and other tools, to enable us to improve the website and evaluate our technical infrastructure. We do not use this information to identify website users, unless you choose to provide your identity to us through one of the means provided on the Fleetwood Family Law website.

2. What do we do with information provided directly by you?

Personal information will only be used for the purpose provided by the firm, or for a use consistent with that purpose, by persons authorized by the firm. If you believe your personal information is being used for a purpose other than what you intended, please contact us immediately with the details of your concern.

3. How do we protect personal information?

We offer the use of a secure server. All supplied sensitive information is transmitted via Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology and then encrypted into our database to be accessed only by those authorized with special access rights to our systems and required to keep the information confidential.

4. Do we use cookies?

A cookie is a file that is stored on your computer by your web browser when you use an Internet site. Fleetwood Family Law only uses session cookies, which remain in existence only during the course of your session.

In order for authorized users to access the secure section of our website, they must enable their computers to accept cookies.

5. Do we disclose any information to third parties?

We do not sell or trade personally identifiable information.

Trusted third parties who assist us in operating our website and conducting our business may have access to personal information if necessary in the circumstances. Information provided by articled students, lawyers, applicants, and members of the public through this website will be used and disclosed as necessary for business operations only. In some cases we may be required to disclose information by law.

6. Third-party links

We feature links to third-party websites on our website. These third-party sites have separate and independent privacy policies. We therefore assume no responsibility or liability for the content and activities of these linked sites. Nonetheless, we seek to protect the integrity of our site and welcome any feedback about these sites.

7. Consent

By using our site, you accept the terms of this Privacy Statement.

Additional information

Changes to our privacy statement or policy

If we decide to change our privacy statement or policies, we will post those changes to this page.